Image - www.media.murdoch.edu.au

Image – www.media.murdoch.edu.au

Western Australia’s Banksia Hill riot debacle has generated an ongoing chorus of calls for changes to the State’s juvenile detention system. It has been eight months since the riot, with many of the children still languishing in an adult prison but the calls for change have not died down, indeed they are increasing and from diverse groups.

Western Australia has the worst incarceration records in the nation – adults and juveniles – disproportionately targeted at Aboriginal peoples.

Calls for changes to the juvenile detention system, including the mandatory sentencing laws and criminal justice system which underwrite the high arrest and sentencing rates have come from the President of WA’s Children’s Court, Justice Denis Reynolds, from the State’s Commissioner for Children and Youth, Michelle Scott, from the State’s Inspector of Custodial Services, Professor Neil Morgan, from prison reform advocates and academic experts such as Dr Brian Steels, from human rights laywers such as George Newhouse.

Amnesty Internationals Indigenous Rights coordinator Rodney Dillon travelled to Perth to meet with the parents of many of the Banksia Hill detainees who for at least eight months have been forced into a segregated stay at the nearby adult prison, Hakea. Some of them have now been transferred to Banksia Hill, that is 24 of them for now, with another 80 to be gradually transferred in the coming weeks.

Mr Dillon was denied visits to the two Hakea units where the majority of the Banksia Hill detainees languish. But Mr Dillon is more interested in ways forward that will see less youth in detention. “We have come to Western Australia to talk to the parents about ways to stop kids finishing up in (detention) in the first place,” said Mr Dillon.

He said there needed to be an onus on diversionary and prevention programs, and that these needed to be funded. They will only exist if they are allocated in State Government and Corrective Services budgets. “Diversionary programs can put in place stops that ensure our kids do not finish up in Banksia.”

“We cannot waste anymore time, these measures have to take place now.”

A class action was unsuccessfully fought for on behalf of the children by lawyer George Newhouse to have them released from the segregated units of an adult prison. Mr Newhouse welcomed Amnesty’s and Mr Dillon’s involvement.

“I am very pleased Amnesty International has involved itself in this matter. I am very disappointed to hear, despite the court case, the boys are being kept in conditions where they are not getting enough education, not enough food, not enough psychological support,” said Mr Newhouse.

“(The boys) are being treated badly in both Hakea and Banksia Hill.”

Mr Dillon said that the only ways forward is if Western Australia’s shocking incarceration rates are highlighted around-the-clock. State parliamentarians must be made to acknowledge the disproportionate incarceration rates and of the lowly investing in diversionary and community support programs that they oversee and can change. “Western Australia has the highest incarceration rate of our people anywhere in this country,” said Mr Dillon.

Indeed, according to my own research – comparative global data – Western Australia jails Aboriginal adult males, from a racialised perspective, higher than any other nation. WA’s incarceration rates, according to my research, are higher than apartheid South Africa’s incarceration rates of Black South Africans. WA imprisons its Aboriginal youth and adult males at higher rates than what does the mother of all jailers, the USA, of its African-American youth and adult males.

Mr Dillon was disturbed that WA’s Department of Corrective Services did not grant Amnesty visiting rights and that instead he has had to rely on the testimonies provided to him by the parents of the detained juveniles.

“If WA’s justice system was good enough, you would find only twenty per cent of the kids would be in (detention). We have not been able to talk to (the youth) and give them advice but we are looking at ways with their parents and the State Government to not only engage with the kids but that that things change altogether,” said Mr Dillon.

Mr Newhouse said the current predicament needs to be “rectified.”

“The West Australian Government should focus first on young people from the detention and prison system. There are young people on remand who should not be in prison,” said Mr Newhouse.